


I'll Throw Us Overboard

by reneedanis



Series: We're My Favourite Mosaic [3]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Bellarke, Commitment, F/M, Heartache, Like, Modern Era, Pain, Relationship Issues, Tension, at least 3 angst, cheers - Freeform, here's a thing i wrote ??, hostility, i still dont kno lmao, idk - Freeform, lead up ?, mega angst, uh yeah, we've got some Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-31
Updated: 2018-07-31
Packaged: 2019-06-19 10:30:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,418
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15508080
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/reneedanis/pseuds/reneedanis
Summary: Clarke and Bellamy have a conversation about the future.





	I'll Throw Us Overboard

The thing with Clarke and Bellamy is that they’re passionate people. There’s a reason they didn’t like each other when they first met – much too similar, it’s the whole magnet situation, the fact that they’re not polar opposites. There’s something terrifying and humbling about being able to look in a mirror and see yourself through the cracks in the glass.

 

But it’s also why they got along so great. After stopping to listen to each other long enough to realise they were fighting for the same side, friendship came to fruition. All the mocking and jabbing, all the other stepping stones in between helped them to become the kind of pair that knew every little part of each other, decided they liked all their parts the best.

 

The only issue with knowing someone that well is knowing the exact way to drive the knife when you really want it to hurt. Clarke’s always been good at sanding down the sharper sides of herself.

 

It’s a Thursday night and they’re eating spaghetti out of bright yellow bowls. They’re sitting side by side at the table, a rickety wooden thing with one leg shorter than the rest. It always needs an inch of support under that one side to keep it stable, a lot like Clarke in this rainstorm.

 

The table is eerily quiet, the house has been all day and she knows it’s because of her but she can’t help it. Because she found something that’s left her heart in the base of her throat and she doesn’t think she can move it around enough to get any words out.

 

Bellamy has a ring. A very nice one at that, but a ring nonetheless. It was hidden at the top of their closet, under a pile of jumpers, behind a shoe box. She promises she wasn’t snooping; she’s not that kind of person. But now that she knows it exists she can’t stop thinking about it.

 

It’s a beautiful ring. Gold band, a small shiny stone in the middle flanked by two diamonds, the kind of colour her mother likes. She thinks it would be a great fit for her if she was willing to wear it. Instead she hastily tucks it back where she found it, forgets whatever she came in their room for in the first place and takes a half step back inside herself.

 

She loves Bellamy, she really really does. There isn’t a part of him she doesn’t love, even the parts she doesn’t always like. But she doesn’t know if she can be a wife. She’s seen enough marriages fall apart to know that they tear things down faster than they make them stronger.

 

When she makes her way to the kitchen, there’s a pile of printed out real estate columns on the counter, houses on the city fringe. Places with a white picket fences and a yard; neighbours who know each other by name.

 

Looking through the pictures fills Clarke with a sense of dread she can’t pin down.

 

She knows she’s tense at the table, clutching her cutlery too tightly in her fists but she’s so goddamn nervous, a taut coil of energy. She can feel Bellamy’s gaze darting across her face. He’s trying to be subtle about this apprehension but she reads him better than her own hands by now, knows he’s worried by her silence.

 

His voice is the lights turned to dim, nice and warm and slow. Her favourite part of winter, when the rain hits the windows and it’s dark outside, the kind of warmth that comes from knowing it’s cold without feeling it.

 

He clears his throat from beside her, runs a finger down her clenched hands and she can’t meet his eyes. She resists the urge to move away from his touch, fights the desire to flinch. The air is tense around them; she can feel it coarse and thick against her arms.

 

“What’s going on?” His voice, a whisper in the warm hue of this room, runs like wind down her face.

 

She relaxes her hands, rubs her palms down her arms roughly, trying to get the blood circulating through them again. His eyes follow the movement.

 

“Do you like our life here?” her tone is as tight as her body in this moment and she hates it but she doesn’t know how to stop it.

 

There’s a lot at risk here, there’s too many opportunities to burn this all to the ground, she’s worried about where her feet will land if she sinks into the fall.

 

He starts, furrows his eyebrows in confusion.

 

“Oh course.” He says, voice solid, warm and familiar, “What do you-“

 

“Because I saw all the real estate files on the bench and I was just wondering, you know, are you unhappy here like why the interest in moving.” she feels shifty, like her skin is suddenly heavy around her bones.

 

“Well I mean I’m interested in moving out of the city eventually but I’m not in a rush you know it’s a step we have to take together but it was just more curiousity than anything. I want to be ready for when we do eventually move – is this what’s got you so worked up?”

 

“I mean it just felt like you were taking these steps without me, you didn’t even tell me you were thinking about moving out.”

 

He pauses, rubs his lips together choosing his words.

 

“I thought that it was the next natural step for us.” his voice is slow, the sun setting behind the ocean in the summertime.

 

But Clarke feels like a rainstorm, like thunder and grey skies because she isn’t sure of what she wants, and Bellamy is so very very sure. She’s worried about tipping the boat too heavily on one side and throwing them both overboard.

 

The thing with Clarke is that she’s never really taken big steps with another person before. She’s always been two steps ahead or a few behind with all of her partners. She’s taken big steps herself before, plenty of times, but never intertwined her fingers with someone else for the journey. She’s good at carrying her own bags – has the callouses to prove it.

 

She can see her chest rising and falling as her breathing increases slightly.

 

“Clarke are you – do you see that for us too?”

 

She doesn’t know what to say to him. It’s not that she doesn’t see that with him. A house and a yard and probably a dog and maybe a wedding and a kid and them together. It sounds too good to be true, it doesn’t sound real. It’s a delicate future, a crystal egg balanced on top of two crosshatched heartbeats. Clarke isn’t good at holding delicate things, her fingers are too clunky, and she hasn’t got the patience.

 

She isn’t sure she’s good enough to be everything he wants. She’s well versed in disappointing people; she’s terrified she’ll add his name to the list.

 

She opens her mouth to speak but she can’t find the words. He’s so earnest beside her in the soft lamp light.

 

“Because if you don’t, that’s something we’re gonna have to talk about.”

 

She can’t breathe. Fears losing him like a physical ache, but she really doesn’t know if she can be that person, that version of herself that loves him openly, publicly in all the ways he deserves. The version of herself that won’t let him down, that won’t tear this all apart. She’s always been good at lighting fires, she’s not so good at remembering to put them out. Her memory of the way the burns felt hold her back from him.

 

“I mean – I just –“ she takes in a heavy breath. “What’s wrong with how we are now? Are you not satisfied here? Do you not like our life?”

 

He frowns deeper at her.

 

“I told you, I very much like our life here, I’m just thinking of the future.”

  
“Why though? Why do we have to even talk about it, it’s so far away.”

 

There’s a heavy beat of silence between them, something clicks into place - she can feel it - but she’s knows it’s not in her.

 

He shifts, sits with his back straight. “So, what? We just live here in _your_ apartment for the rest of our lives?”

 

She rolls her eyes. “It’s your apartment too.”

 

“No no see that’s where you’re wrong because it’s not. This was _your_ place before I moved in, all of this stuff here is yours the table, the tv, the couch everything in here is all _you_.”

 

She frowns back at him now, lets her fingers grip the edge of the table, helps her transfer some of the tension out of her body.

 

“That’s not true, just because it was here before you doesn’t make it not yours it’s just stuff.”

 

“It’s not just stuff it’s your stuff.”

 

She huffs like she’s pushing hair out of her face. “Fuck Bellamy if you wanted to get new shit just tell me you want us to get new shit.”

 

He groans, rubs his hands down his face, elbows resting on the table. He makes direct eye contact with her, takes up all the space in her vision.

 

“That’s not the point. It feels like you just slotted me into your life, you didn’t make space. I thought maybe you were holding onto this place and this stuff because you and I were on the same page about moving somewhere else eventually. Obviously I was wrong to assume that.”

 

“It’s not like we ever had that conversation-“

 

“No. We didn’t. I’m sorry for even entertaining the fact that you might’ve considered something long term with me.” His voice is harsh; it’s gravel under her bare feet. She doesn’t like the way he’s looking at her is making her feel.

 

Her fingers haven’t loosened on the edge of the table; they’ve turned white under the pressure.

 

“That’s not fair and you know it.”

 

He scoffs but it sounds wrong. It’s not fond and warm like normal. It’s harsh, almost like he’s laughing at her in a way he doesn’t anymore. It makes her feel small.

 

“Isn’t it? Because it feels like I’m here trying to take some big steps but you’re not willing to take them with me.”

 

Her heart begins to beat faster, harsher. There’s a tightness to her chest she’s never had with him before. The sand beneath her feet is letting her sink through the floorboards, the current traps around her knees.

“I just don’t see why we have to take them now.”

 

His eyes turn down at tone of her voice. She watches as his face cracks open, gravel hitting the windscreen. His voice is so rough she’s surprised he manages to speak.

 

“I’m not trying to force you to do anything you don’t want to do. But if you don’t see us going anywhere beyond these four walls I don’t know if – I want more than that. I deserve more than that.” his voice is a third above a whisper, feels like he’s talking with a mouthful of smoke.

 

There are tears filling her eyes. Her windpipe has closed itself off. She rubs her lips together, trying to coax out some words of comfort but she doesn’t know if she can piece together the right ones.

 

‘I don’t want to let you down’

 

‘Let’s watch the sunrise, forget this ever happened’

 

‘Don’t worry about the tear drops on your shoes, they’ll dry up soon’

 

‘I love you so much it makes me see the stars even in the city smog did you know that’

 

‘I’m too scared to disappoint you’

 

“I don’t know what you want me to say.”

 

“SOMETHING.” He yells, pushing away from the table and turning his back on her.

 

His back is tight, twisted muscle under his tee shirt. His chin is tilted upwards, asking the ceiling for some kind of guidance as he runs his hands through his hair. He is a coil, a wound spring, breathing in so deeply like he’s drowning, practically gasping for air.

 

She flinches away from his voice, walks her gaze across the floor to his feet. She loves mosaics, all the broken pieces fitting into unorthodox puzzles. She thought her and Bellamy where a little like that. Different kinds of broken, but broken all the same, coming together so brilliantly their jagged edges looked more like blurred lines than teeth.

 

She’s good at keeping him on his toes. This time however, making him question everything they’ve built, if the road is really going to just end here in a mess of brick and cement, this is pulling the rug out from under him. This is watching him swallow salt water and crying into the ocean. This is letting his hand fall through hers when he reaches for her fingers. This is feeling her heart break as she watches his break first.

 

Now she looks at his back, the way his body refuses to stop moving, so wound up with energy and thinks all the things she wishes she had the guts to say.

 

“I want you to say something.” His whisper travels over his shoulder.

 

An hourglass has been knocked over and she’s up to her neck in sand but she doesn’t have anything to say, can’t think of any words to make this all better. She cleans up faster with him by her side, but the broom and the dustpan are in the pantry, she doesn’t have time to clean up the mess she made.

 

He stands straighter, pulls his shoulder muscles tightly into each other, sniffs loudly into the silence she’s dropping over the floor.

 

“I need to not be here, I don’t want to – I can’t be here right now.” he mutters, makes a move into the hallway.

 

She hears him grab his jacket, the ruffle of the material. She hears the change in his footfalls on the wooden floor as he puts on his shoes, the jingle of his keys. She hears the chain come off the door, the pause before he opens it fully – he was always too good at giving her chances – before walking out into the night.

 

Clarke sits alone at the table, numb fingers gripping the edge of the wood eyes drilling a hole into her bowl of spaghetti willing it to help her. She wonders how he took all the warmth with him as the silence becomes cold around her.

**Author's Note:**

> I was gonna do my whole "break up" piece but im tired so i'll continue later so here's the first bit. I'm feeling 2 more bits maybe but idk depends how we go !! 
> 
> also i didn't edit this so i apologise 
> 
> thank u for reading, aroha nui !!


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